


Busted (Remix feat. Pitbull)

by anselm0



Series: Vault of Secrets [2]
Category: Psych
Genre: Gen, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-15
Updated: 2019-03-15
Packaged: 2019-11-18 11:45:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18120158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anselm0/pseuds/anselm0
Summary: Shawn totally would have been able to keep the secret from Gus, but did he reallywantto? (Yes, he just messed up.)





	Busted (Remix feat. Pitbull)

**Author's Note:**

> Set between 1.04 "Woman Seeking Dead Husband - Smokers Okay, No Pets" and 1.05 "9 Lives"
> 
> **I forgot that Shawn canonically gets his appendix out in 6.13 "Let's Doo-Wop It Again." Oops, but in my defense, it's not a great episode.

**2006**

“Dude, this is ridiculous.”

Gus was not moved, and continued filling out Shawn’s medical history forms.

“It was seven years ago, Gus! I was fully healed by six and a half years ago. I went to the follow-up and all five yearly checkups with the cardiologist in Montana.”

“Forgive me if I don’t take your word for it after you lied to me for nearly a decade, Shawn. Do you have a primary care doctor?”

“Obviously not. Look, I’m fine.”

“Then you won’t mind proving it. You’ll need a local cardiologist anyway and Silverman is the best in Santa Barbara. You’re lucky I could pull some strings to get you an appointment.”

Shawn flopped back in his seat. “He can’t be that great; his waiting room doesn’t even have a TV.”

“She’s a woman. Have you had any changes in your bowel habits?”

Gus was clearly uncomfortable with the question and trying to hide it. _Shawn_ was little uncomfortable, though he would never admit it, and he was willing to overlook it to needle Gus. “What kind of changes are we talking? Texture? Color? Volume?”

“You know what?” Gus interrupted. “I’m going to put you down for a no. I’m also putting you down for a yes on easy bruising.”

“Gus, just because I am not blessed with your cocoa butter complexion does not mean I bruise easily. I bruise the normal amount. Probably less, actually. I bet Henry gave me blood calluses.”

“Blood calluses aren’t a thing, Shawn. Now, before I go hand this in, are there any other hospitalizations you’ve been keeping a secret from me?” Gus gave him a sassily expectant look, pen hovering over the page. His handwriting was neat and straight, so he never would have made it as a doctor even if he hadn’t been a total baby about bodies and fluids and such.

Shawn said no, which happened to be the truth. Gus already knew about his appendectomy. He’d been away at college, but Shawn had called Gus’s parents to take him to the hospital. He hadn’t been speaking to Henry at the time, his mom had been in Michigan, and it was before he had left Santa Barbara, so it wasn’t a long drive for the Gusters. He’d waited until they’d be done with dinner before calling them to come get him.

Accidentally letting a secret slip once could be written off as Henry’s dastardly cunning, but twice was starting to make him look bad. It was deeply embarrassing that the second slip was the result of the same sweat-mopping maneuver as the first. It hadn’t even been that hot, but digging for buried bank robbery treasure was hot work. In Shawn’s defense, Gus, despite his many great qualities as a human being, wasn’t as observant as Henry, plus Shawn had been preoccupied trying to work out how deep David Wilcroft would have been able to dig in a rainstorm while constantly having to brush his magnificent hair out of his eyes. Just his luck that the one time Gus didn’t get all prudish over the slightest bit of bare skin was when Shawn flashed the bottom of his scar again. Gus had freaked out and not even the promise of millions of dollars in buried treasure could persuade him that Shawn did not need to see a doctor. The lesson here was it was in Shawn's best interest to avoid exertion at all costs.

Gus had gotten him to the doctor’s office ridiculously early, more than twenty minutes before the actual appointment. After Gus took the forms back to the nurse at the front desk, there was nothing to do but wait. Shawn hated waiting. Waiting was time that had nothing in it to distract him from all the details nobody else noticed or particularly cared about, and definitely didn’t want to hear about. Gus, of course, knew that, which was why they hadn’t arrived as early as Gus would like and why he had lied about where they were going in the first place. But now here they were, and Shawn was bored. There weren’t any other patients to profile in the waiting room, which was more of a waiting nook, and no toys or television or anything more entertaining than an issue of _Nature_ from last December and two _AARP_ magazines that were even older. The nurse who checked him in was Catholic, had gotten her hair cut to its current short style from a much longer one within the last couple of weeks, and she had at least two kids still in school, probably at least one more grown. She’d been on a diet recently but was about to break it.

Heaving a sigh, Shawn slouched farther in his chair, until his butt was nearly all the way off the seat. There were tiny cracks in the wall near the ceiling, probably from the last earthquake that broke 3.0. Some of the bland, pale blue paint had flaked off, revealing the even blander off-white the walls had been before.

Gus kicked his protruding foot. “Ow!” It didn’t really hurt, but you couldn’t just not react when someone kicked you. Plus, his boredom was a physically painful thing, which Gus was also responsible for. Shawn was about to tell him this when Gus produced a GameBoy from his jacket’s inner pocket. “Gus, you know me so well! I thought that was a calculator.”

“I thought I knew you pretty well, too,” Gus said, seemingly on pettiness autopilot. “And why would I carry a calculator?”

“It seemed like a you thing to do. And can you please just let it go? I’m here, I’m going to get checked out, Dr. Goldson—”

“Silverman.”

“—will tell you I’m fine, and then you’re going to feel silly for getting so worked up about this.”

“Shawn, you had open heart surgery! You’re lucky I didn’t take you to the emergency room as soon as I found out last Saturday!”

“You did, and the nurse-slash-bouncer told you a surgery that happened seven years ago wasn’t an emergency, which is what I told you!”

Gus made a dismissive tsking noise. “Were you ever going to tell me?”

He looked annoyed, but he also looked upset. Shawn hated when Gus looked truly upset, had ever since they were playing He-Man in his backyard and he broke the legs off of Gus’s Skeletor figurine for realism during the climactic battle sequence. Shawn could not tell him the truth now, which was that he hadn’t planned on telling anyone, ever, but he also couldn’t find a good lie quickly enough. Gus stopped looking annoyed and now just looked upset.

“You could have died, Shawn. You could have died, and I wouldn’t have known.”

Incidentally, this was the longest Shawn had held his GameBoy without playing it. That fun fact wouldn’t help stop the look on Gus’s face. “It was 1999,” he tried. “I didn’t have a cellphone to call you from the side of the road in Montana. And I’m not actually psychic, so I couldn’t call you ahead of time when I was near a landline.”

“I know, I know!” Gus threw himself into the chair next to Shawn’s, pulling his briefcase up into his lap and hugging it like a stuffed animal. “But you didn’t call me afterward, either.”

“Because you could have done something about it? It would have just distracted you. You had just started your first fulltime job, you didn’t need anything else on your plate.”

“That’s crap and you know it. I’d been there for more than seven months! I already had time off I could have used in case, I don’t know, my best friend had been in a horrific accident.”

This was another thing that Shawn couldn’t tell Gus: that he didn’t think Gus would care enough about him after nearly five years of postcards and infrequent phone calls and having college friends to come see him. That it was bad enough that he’d thought, in the haze of morphine when he first woke up, that the attending doctor was his mom, having somehow known he was hurt and immediately coming to see him, and felt bizarrely rejected when he woke up the second time, less hazy, and realized that she hadn’t. That he couldn’t bear the thought of calling Gus then and hearing in his voice that his best friend didn’t care much about Shawn at all anymore.

He could see now that he had guessed wrong, and not in a funny way that would make a good story.

Shawn fidgeted, and his elbow happened to land on the armrest so his shoulder brushed against Gus’s. After a second, Gus rearranged his grip on his briefcase and his arm pressed more firmly against Shawn’s.

“Sorry,” Shawn mumbled. “I shouldn’t have—”

“Yeah,” Gus agreed hurriedly. “I’m sorry too. I just—”

“I know, buddy.” Clearing his throat, Shawn pretended he didn’t see Gus fussily straightening his tie out of awkwardness with the emotional demonstration. Shawn did an unnecessary second sweep over the waiting nook; still no entertainment. So he couldn’t help adding, “I wasn’t really in the hospital because of the accident, though. I would have been fine, except my dad gave me a heart condition.”

“Dude, you know you can’t blame your dad for that.”

“I’m gonna.”

Gus audibly rolled his eyes. But he wasn’t sad anymore, and Shawn counted that as a win.

Dr. Silverman turned out to be a tall, middle-aged woman who’d had the same haircut for her whole adult life and had probably been gawky as a teenager but had settled into her frame. She wore two similarly sized wedding bands and a star of David on a slim gold chain, so she was either a Jewish lesbian or married to one.

For some reason, Gus had misspelled ‘psychic’ as ‘private’ on his intake form about his profession and then elbowed Shawn in the kidney when he pointed it out and tried to voice his observations as visions.

“So, Mr. Spencer,” Dr. Silverman said briskly, flicking through the form and the nurse’s measurements of his blood pressure and whatnot. “You had an aortic dissection seven years ago?”

“That depends. What’s an aortic dissection?”

“That’s correct,” Gus spoke over him. “He was in a vehicular accident that affected a preexisting aneurysm. Dr. Robert Contreras in Billings performed a David valve-sparing root replacement and repaired the bicuspid valve.” He pulled a file out of his briefcase and handed it over to Silverman, who looked impressed with all the medical lingo. Not as impressed as Gus looked with himself, of course, but maybe he knew that it was a good look for him. Why he was wasting it on a middle-aged lesbian, only Gus could rationalize away.

“Are those my medical records?”

“Yes, Shawn. You made me your medical proxy, remember?”

“This week, under duress!”

Silverman glanced up, either mildly interested or mildly alarmed. “Should we continue this privately?”

“He’s exaggerating.” Gus plucked a business card out of his breast pocket with two fingers. “I’m Burton Guster. Shawn and I are business partners. He’s my medical proxy, too. Oh, and I’m a rep for Central Coast Pharmaceuticals, if you’re ever looking for a new supplier.”

“Oh, my God,” Shawn gasped. “Are you using my fake medical emergency to hawk pills?”

“No!”

Silverman shushed them vigorously so she could skim the file. Her glasses were enormous with chunky plastic frames, but surprisingly, she pulled them off. “Contreras, he does good work. Looks like a smooth recovery, too. And you haven’t had any symptoms since? Nausea, fatigue, breathing difficulties?”

Shawn shook his head, then reconsidered. “Well, we don’t go to the fish taco place on Oak anymore, even though their guacamole has just the right amount of cilantro. And I do love a nap. A nice siesta from two to four, four-thirty. But that’s just because it’s prime lunch-digestion time. Plus nothing happens in the afternoon.”

“Nothing good, anyway,” Gus agreed. “And I think the health department shut that place down.”

Silverman let all this roll over her with great aplomb. “Your blood pressure looks good. You’re not on any medication?”

“Gus gives me a Flintstones gummy vitamin every morning.”

Gus shrugged. “He’d eat them all otherwise.”

“Right.” Silverman pulled her glasses apart at the bridge and let them hang around her neck, the bridge snapping back together magnetically; Shawn shared a delighted, awestruck look with Gus. “Let’s take a listen and then we’ll take a look.”

She listened to his heartbeat and breathing, scribbling down a few notes and answering Gus’s obviously pre-researched questions. Her handwriting was classic doctor handwriting, changing size wildly from letter to letter and totally illegible. Seeing that boosted Shawn’s confidence in her immediately.

“Need to go to the bathroom before the echo?” Shawn didn’t, so he took off his shirt without prompting. He knew the drill.

Silverman placed the electrodes firmly to avoid tickling. “Nice looking zipper,” she complimented, palpating down the length of his scar; Gus whimpered in the background, though it was an objectively sweet-looking scar. “Keeping it out of the sun?”

“Yep, and I’ve been using Gus’s cocoa butter to moisturize.”

The high whine cut off abruptly. “I knew you smelled suspiciously good!”

Then the farting tube of conduction gel came out, the shades came down, and Silverman snapped her glasses back together on her nose to peer at the readout. Shawn thought about reusing the pregnancy jokes he had made to Dr. Contreras, but thought it might be weird with Gus right there and Silverman being a lesbian. She might get the wrong idea.

As usual, the echo took forever, with Silverman rolling the wand through the gel on chest to get different angles, occasionally asking him to hold his breath. For the billionth time, Shawn wished he were in a movie so they could just jump-cut to the interesting bits. In real life, the most exciting part was when he got to roll over onto his side. The exam room was almost as boring as the test and with the blinds closed, he couldn’t see what was going on outside. To keep from falling asleep or fidgeting and making the test last even longer, Shawn entertained himself by pretending he was getting probed by aliens, or donating his heart to save the President’s life—nope, boring, and he wasn’t sure who the President was or if he was worth it. Gus’s life, sure, though Gus would probably be stupid and not let him do that, and thinking about Gus dying wasn’t fun at all. Jean-Claude Van Damme. Yeah, he was giving his heart to Van Damme to restore him to his 1991 _Double Impact_ peak so he could make a better _Street Fighter_ movie.

“Implant’s looking good,” Silverman announced, rudely interrupting his selfless sacrifice for video game adaptations everywhere. She turned the screen so they could see the black and white blobs and rushes of red and blue representing his blood. “The seam’s just visible here. Damn fine cutter, Contreras.”

“Nguh,” said Gus.  

“Are you kidding me, dude? It’s not even real blood.”

Gus’s gagging noises made Dr. Silverman look up warily. “Is he going to be okay?”

“He’ll be fine. It’s part of his process.” In the spirit of friendship, Shawn didn’t rat out Gus’s death grip on his wrist.

Dr. Silverman prudently turned the colors off and pressed on. “The most likely complication is the valve leaflets fusing again. They were fine three years ago, but we’ll check them to see if that’s still the case.”

Another adjustment with the wand and the funny flappy hole showed up on the screen and the surf sound of it opening and closing played over the display’s speakers. She studied it for a moment before pronouncing it “a fine-looking valve. Contreras does clean work.”

“Wait, that’s it?” Gus forgot to be nauseated by the sound of Shawn’s blood. “Are you sure? You only looked for a second.”

Silverman gave him a withering look over her future-glasses. “Well, I’ve only been doing this for thirty years. Do you want to take a look, see if you agree?”

Gus started stuttering out an apology and explanation, but he still had that crease between his eyebrows that said he was actually concerned about something. That something was usually one of Shawn’s brilliant plans, which to be fair to Gus’s forehead often did go off the rails, but also tended to work out in the end, so Gus’s forehead should have recalibrated to reflect that.

“Can I look? I have an eidetic memory, I’ll know if it’s the same.”

Silverman wasn’t totally convinced but was intrigued enough to tilt the screen so he could see it without straining his neck. Shawn had her adjust the wand minutely so the shapes matched with what he remember from his last follow-up with Contreras, then watched the flappy hole flap open and closed a couple times. Then he watched for a little longer, because Gus still thought that taking more time meant doing a better job, even though he’d known Shawn basically all his life.

“Yup, it’s good.”

“That’s what I said,” Silverman mumbled under her breath, but she didn’t sound insulted. “Do you really have an eidetic memory?”

“It’s a gift and a curse,” Shawn told her nobly, the effect ruined by the fact that he was at the same time wiping lukewarm goo off his nipple. “I have no idea what any of that was, but I can tell you that it looks exactly like it did three years ago, and four years ago, and five years ago, and suck it, Gus, I told you I was fine.”

No longer worried for Shawn’s life, Gus clicked his tongue in annoyance and resumed his usual prudish aversion to naked bodies.

Once his shirts were back on, Dr. Silverman said something about scheduling checkups and symptoms to watch our for , but Shawn tuned all that out since Gus would handle it. She seemed to have caught on to that fact because she handed all the pamphlets about blood pressure and cholesterol directly to Gus. At long last, they were done and walking back to Gus’s car.

“I know that was boring for you,” Gus said as he searched his pockets for his keys. “Thanks for putting my mind at ease. I just—Shawn, did you take my keys?”

In answer, Shawn held them up and shook them so they made that delightful stolen keyring sound. “I took them almost as soon as we got to the office, buddy. Then you didn’t notice and I got bored again and I put them back. Then I took them again and put them back in your other pocket. Then I took them and put them in my pocket for a while. Then—”

“I get it, you’re a kleptomaniac. Give me my keys. You’re not driving my car.”

“I think you mean klepto-genius, and I thought it was a company car.” But he tossed the keys back, liking the sound they made when Gus caught them almost as much as the stolen keyring jingle. He was already standing on the passenger side anyway, but Gus couldn’t be expected to pick up on the same level of detail that Shawn could.

After Gus finally unlocked his door, Shawn remembered something he meant to ask. “She can’t tell anybody about my skillz,” he dragged out the Z, “can she?”

“No, you’ve got doctor-patient confidentiality.” Gus paused with the key over the ignition. “Did you tell her the truth without knowing that? While we’re defrauding the police? Shawn!”

“I had to tell her the truth! Did she look like someone who believes in psychics? And I knew about doctor-patient conferencing, I’m just messing with you.” At least, he knew it was a thing in doctor shows, but he’d been seventy, eighty percent sure it was a real thing, too.

Gus clearly didn’t believe him, but after two hours in the doctor’s office, he was as ready as Shawn for a light pre-dinner snack and thus willing to let it go if it meant they got to eat sooner.

“You should have called me after the accident, Shawn,” Gus said once they were out of the parking lot, going for casual and missing by several nautical miles. “Wilbur-horse U-neigh-versity? I could do better than that in my sleep.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Bonnie and Clydesdale,” Gus began reciting smugly. “Hairy Trotter. Nu-mare-ical superi-horsey. Filly-adelphia Free-dam. Centaur of attention. Pony Spur-ano.”

“Gus! You’re on fire! Except for that last one: Spur-ano, the rhythm doesn’t really work. But I’ll definitely call you the next time I name a racehorse.”

“You better. And the rhythm is perfect, Shawn. You know my pun game is unbeatable.”

They did a fist bump over the center console. Gus looked a lot happier now, shoulders loose and relaxed enough to show a stripe of his peach-colored collar over his lapel, even with his arms up to hold the steering wheel at 2 and 10 o’clock, exactly how their driving instructor had showed them. Shawn felt pretty happy himself, despite having missed the Discovery Channel documentary on dogs whose best friends were cheetahs to hear something he already knew. They’d probably re-air it at midnight, or Saturday morning at the latest.  

“Falafel truck on Del Rio?”

“You know that’s right.”

**Author's Note:**

> Story of my life, I did a bunch of research that didn't make it into the story. Gus sort of explains it, but for medically inclined, Shawn had a congenital defect that made the valve between his heart and aorta fuse two of the three flaps or cusps. The bicuspid valve was tight, making his heart work extra hard to pump blood to his body and causing increased pressure in his aorta that led to an aneurysm, a balloon-like expansion of the vessel. It was small and didn't cause any problems or symptoms until the crash, when the blunt trauma compressed the aneurysm and it dissected, separating the aorta wall's layers of tissue and letting blood in between them. The aneurysm grew quickly and the vessel ruptured from the sudden strain, causing internal bleeding and requiring open heart surgery. A David valve-sparing root replacement is a surgical implant that takes the place of the damaged part of the aorta and can last a lifetime. Bicuspid valves aren't often repaired surgically but since the other options would have put Shawn on blood thinners for life and potentially in need of repeat transplants as the old ones wore out, I decreed it would be operable and possible to do a surgery technically invented in 2007. It's canon that Shawn has incredible good luck.


End file.
